Isfahan Carpet

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Introduction

English A1 Ispahan Carpet The poem Ispahan Carpet by Elizabeth Burge has been written from the point of view of an outsider or the author herself who has been deeply saddened by the working conditions in Persia or Iran. In the poem, the poet describes a poor Persian family who can only sit and weave carpet everyday to make a living in this world. The main theme in this poem represents child labor and its effect on our world today. The author shows emotions towards the family and feels sorry for them and their long repeated generation of performing this type of work. The poem tells us about how child labor is affecting parts of countries around the world where people are living in harsh conditions and poverty. The opening line of the first stanza of the poem "rough timber gallows on which the carpets are woven" begins to describe the working conditions on which the carpets are woven on. The image from the second line "by a silent, sallow, dark-eyed Persian family" places us more into the situation and the setting of where this is taking place. ...read more.

Middle

The transition into the third stanza keeps you in a sorrowful mood with each line beginning with "one hundred" where Elizabeth Burge was describing the tragic effect on the physical health of these child laborers in "one hundred beats of a young girl growing" just so in "one hundred hours the space of a foot will crush down" on the carpet. The fourth stanza the poet wonders how this beauty of a carpet and the way it is made. The fifth and last stanza is when the outsider sympathizes with the girl and how she looks back at her with "her large eyes...speaking darkness" of her despairing life. The length of the five stanzas varies according to the shift in mood and description. The longer the stanzas the more descriptive they are giving the poem a more complex exquisite mood of the woven carpets that are being displayed. The shorter stanzas tend to wrap up the hardships of the young girls sowing. Initially the poem has a mood of sorrow and desperation. This does not change throughout the poem as it becomes more evident throughout it of the life these girls are living in and the "the large eyes that look back with a speaking darkness". ...read more.

Conclusion

The description of the working conditions of the family is described well with the beginning word "rough". Words such as "silent", "sallow" and "dark-eyed" also is well written in imagining the Persian family, especially when around customers or tour guides watching over them. I believe that the central theme in this passage is related to poverty and child labor not only in Persia but throughout the world. From the poem, one can see the life these children are living and how most of us don't think about how things are done, but how they can make us happy. It makes you begin to think about very poor countries around the world and the hardships its people, not only children, are going through in order to make a life for them. The poem Ispahan Carpet by Elizabeth Burge is perfectly detailed in allowing the readers to imagine the hardships going on in Persia and around the world. It makes the audience stop for a minute and think about all those people that are living a tough life whether they are forced too or whether it is the only way. It also makes us thankful for what we have and to be helpful to those who need it. ?? ?? ?? ?? ...read more.

Her intelligence and beauty are highly valued to her family, relatives and friends as they will present the best opportunity for a good marriage. She 'won a scholarship to Oxford', yet it was 'locked in a steel cupboard' at home and only used to search for a husband.

The image of a sparrow also compliments the image of young girls in terms of the quantitative work they do as well as their size. This frailty is reinforced in the end as he mentions the speaker's "swollen hands" as a result of weaving for "one hundred years" just to

long hours of extremely difficult work that sicken and weaken their bodies and restrict their growth. This picture causes a well of emotions such as shock and disgust to rise in the hearts of the reader. "Shadowing the makers of the webs.